On relationships and love

This was written mid-1998.

Relationships

I have been putting off writing this for over five years, so a lot
of the thoughts here are ones that have been brewing in my mind for a
while. The reason I am finally writing this now is because I'm over a
long (five year) relationship with someone I cared deeply about; I
didn't really feel an urgency to put down my thoughts about
relationships as long as I was involved in one. Unlike all my
previous relationships (which were more than two handfuls, double
entendre intended), this was a relationship that I didn't think would
end and one that I didn't want to end. However, certain events
(mostly screw ups on my part) occurred with the inevitable result, and
now I am faced again with the prospect of not knowing whether I will
be with someone I seriously care about. Thus this missive about my
views on relationship and love which formed after a series of several
relationships when I was a lot younger (I'm 26 as I write this). This
is simply an addition to the rest of my
philosophical missives. The major difference is that this one is
written in first person, but like all the others, the goal is to put
my thoughts on paper. The first person use may sound like I'm looking
for someone, but you could in general replace all occurrences of "I"
with "you" and might end up finding some truths for yourself in
here.

A brief background: both people who know me and don't know me can
easily see I have different passions and interests: science, philosophy, music, nature, and many many more. In previous relationships, I
spent more time immersed in those passions than with the person I was
in a relationship with. In an ideal world, I would go as far as to
say that the person I was with didn't make me feel that she was
primary and that my other passions were secondary. However that would
be doing my own feelings and the person I was with a grave
injustice. In reality, it is far too easy to be selfish and to take
things for granted, without realising how short you come up in the
relationship department. In the particular five
year relationship that I didn't want to end, by the time the issue
of me ignoring her was brought up, it was too late, regardless of what
I did to save the situation. In fact, what I did, a sudden turnaround,
only made it worse. For when you ignore and neglect someone over a
period of months, whatever chemistry you had, even if it was the
absolute best, gets lost and unhappiness sets in. The moment I
realised what had happened, I promised to change, and I have changed,
not just for the person I was with and perhaps will be with, but for
my own self.

So the first lesson here is that in any relationship that becomes
stale, there are underlying reasons. I think it behooves us all to
determine what those reasons are, and if they have to do with you,
think about why that is and what can be done for the next time. This
sounds a bit preachy, but what I am trying to say is that it's all too
easy to rescind the responsibility for one's actions and this is one
of the biggest threats to a relationship.

When I was really young, when the idea of relationships didn't
have any meaning to me, I was completely content with myself. I didn't
need anyone to complete my life in any manner and there was never a
time when I couldn't occupy myself. When I started getting into
serious relationships, in my mid-to-late teens, I was completely
content except for the brief periods during the ending phase of a
relationship, but I had everything a person could want in life. Now I
am single and I'm still completely content. This is partly the cynical
side of me speaking, but it's true because I've always thought
relationships to be a tradeoff between freedom in exchange for close
companionship, i.e., exchanging one set of complications for another
(to quote from Stigmata). (At one
point this would include sex, but these days even though I enjoy it
immensely, I think sex is
overrated.) Ayn Rand (whose philosophies in general I think are
completely trite and banal, but I'll quote her anyway) said

"Before you can learn to say 'I love you', you must first learn to say
'I'."

The problem, if you could call it that, has always been that I
love myself way too much. I enjoy my own company. I can amuse myself
for endless hours. This doesn't mean I'm not with my fears and
insecurities that don't require support from other people, but
assuming nothing is shaking my world, I'm perfectly fine hiking the Grand Canyon by
myself or reading the latest
comic books. In fact, I almost prefer it that way. I think this
is the essence of a good relationship, wherein both partners are happy
and comfortable with themselves, but taken to an extreme (i.e., if
they're too comfortable with themselves, or worse, if one of them is
comfortable and the other is not), it can lead to emptiness.

I say above that I changed for myself and now have decided to
spend a certain amount of time with whoever I end up being with. Why?
Because even given all my interests, I stopped
doing (or didn't do) certain things that I enjoy doing. These are the
simpler things in life that are less productive than solving a scientific research
problem, writing software to
fold proteins, writing a
song, or coming up with a new scheme
to thwart intellectual property. These include bubble blowing,
kite flying, rollerblading,
yo-yoing, playing on the swings in a park, listening to the ocean in
the evenings/night, etc. (I suppose hiking would fall in that category
also, though I'm more avid about hiking than I am about blowing
bubbles.) These days I still do these things by myself, and I enjoy
them, but I have come to realise is that it can be just as much fun
(or more) doing these simpler things in life with someone else. Being
with someone else forces you to do things you normally
wouldn't do, which might be more fun than some of the things you do
do. In fact, that's the best part of a relationship: the uncertainty,
the random variable, that arises from not knowing and understanding
another person completely. Being in a relationship makes life far
more unpredictable and this is A Good Thing.

At the present moment, at the outset, I enjoy being with myself
way too much to want to be in a relationship. However, I figure I
will change my mind when I meet someone and certain sparks fly, as I
have in the past. To me, the essence of a relationship lies in being
close friends. This may sound corny, while I think physical chemistry
is important, in the long term what matters are whether you can talk
to your partner as you grow old. Thus it would be nice to share all
the things I do above, the simpler things and the complicated things.
Continuing on with this line of thought, I think it's not a great idea
to get into a relationship for relationship's sake. That is, as the
friendship develops, if stuff happens, that's great, and if not,
that's great too. I think looking for a relationship generally is
detrimental to ending up in one.

One final point I want to make involves people being scared of
caring about someone deeply or commitment (see thoughts on love
below). I think passion is important, and I think one should "follow
their heart", whatever that means. However, impatience (sometimes
confused for intensity, but it really stems from being passionate) can
indeed destroy a blossoming relationship since it goes against
societal norms. I am an extremely impatient person and this is both a
virtue and one of my biggest flaws. Rather than play the waiting game,
I'd rather push things even if it means a certain negative answer. In
particular, this makes long-distance relationships untenable. It is
strange to me that society views "moving too fast" to be a bad thing,
and perhaps this is generally based on some valid reasons, but
applying this to every case I think is wrong: it's easier to push
people away than to let them in, and I think taking the secure/easy path leads to
emptiness. I think sometimes you can end up in a relationship
like in the movies, and when you do, there's nothing wrong with being
impatient and going too fast. So if you feel you're in one of those,
my advice is to not hold back---that will determine whether it really
is like in the movies or not. I think a passionate relationship, even
if short-lived, is worth the pain. I love like I've never been
hurt.

Love

So what is love? The big picture answer is that romantic love is a
biologically driven phenomenon. It has been selected for because it
helps our genes to propagate, along with a complex set of other
qualities, and they're not independent of each other, i.e., the state
of "being in love", "lust", "jealousy", "anger", "trust", and many
many others, are all tied together in a complex way and it's
really not a clever thing to separate them out. It's a complex
function of the interactions happening within us.

But what is the nature of that state from an individual
perspective? That's more of a personal thing and it's hard to
describe. To me, being in love has many components but at its core is
the view that you will do anything for the person you're in love with
(cynically, this could be viewed as "putting up"). Your passions,
etc. are SO strong that nothing the other person does could be bad in
your eyes (i.e., you become very accepting). All this means that you
essentially give up control of your emotions, etc. to the other
person. It's a scary feeling to most people (and most people who have
issues with trust, etc. have a hard time falling in love) but to me
it's very exhilarating. Essentially you give yourself over to the
other person. Since the state of being in love is ultimately
biologically driven, it has a strong sexual/physical component to it
(i.e., what people call "chemistry"). But that's not enough to sustain
the feeling and for that you need an intellectual and emotional
compatibility (this is also discussed more below).

One experiences different kinds of love as one moves through life,
but romantic love is an amalgamation of all or almost all of these
other loves, and then some. For example, a romantic partnership might
sometimes have characteristics of a parent/offspring or sibling
relationship, and universally of a great friendship. This is usually
witnessed as a romantic love-based relationship progresses over
time.

There are a few quotes in my quotes page which would
aptly describe "love" from different perspectives. I think the
concept of love invented by society is fiction (Plato called it a
grave mental illness), particularly the various idealistic versions of
it. Sartre considered love and relationships to inherently be a cycle
of sado-masochism. That is, a person caring about another person
generally wants the other person to reciprocate, but yet any action
that compels reciprocation will lead to dissatisfaction. In other
words, the person who is doing the loving wants to be loved, but yet
does not want force the love and wants it to happen on its own accord.
So in any given situation, the person who is doing the loving will
objectify the person who is receiving it, compelling them to
reciprocate (sadism). However, the person who does the compelling is
not content when the love is reciprocated because he/she knows it was
because of the objectification (masochism). This begins an escalating
cycle of objectification generally culminating when the relationship
ends.

Objectification in a relationship I think is just as bad as
emotional or physical abuse (and is possibly the cause of abuse in
many cases). I am against
objectification: every time I begin a relationship I always worry
that I will end up objectifying or being objectified. I think it is
possible to overcome objectification and I think it requires the
cooperation of all the people in a relationship. I think successful
relationships (in all walks of life, not just romantic ones) are ones
that step around the objectification problem.

This theme is epitomised excellently (and humourously) in
The Simpsons and Akbar and Jeff cartoons by
Matt Groening. I personally see The Simpsons or
Akbar and Jeff to be the most realistic portrayal of
relationships and love. Obviously few of us are like Homer and Marge
Simpson, but the general idea of why there exists such a deep
commitment between the two of them I think is a valuable thing to pick
up.

So ultimately love I don't think is an emotion or a feeling, but
rather a state of existence for and between two people. That is, love
is the interaction between the partners in a relationship. This may
vary based on the type of the relationship---it could be
dysfunctional, as in The Simpsons, or sado-masochistic
(as in the play Quills), or consummate
(as in Romeo and
Juliet). In an ideal world, love is a Zen-like state,
where two people are together as one. (While this description appeals
to the romantic side of me, the cynical side of me gags at such a
statement---perhaps this is how it should be.) But we don't live in an
ideal world, and no matter what, there's bound to be an imbalance---if
the imbalance/assymetry is too much (i.e., one person cares too much
and the other person doesn't care enough), then it's bound to
frustrate. In such situations, it's better to end it completely (cut
your losses) rather than end up in an objectifying cycle which will
inevitably lead to a bad ending.

So what is my ideal of a great relationship? Everything I say
below is except-able. That is, there are no absolutes and this isn't
a box. In fact, I almost refrained from writing this because I've
learnt that people aren't perfect (d'oh!), and more importantly, to
not expect perfection. This is a good thing, because it would make a
relationship very boring. But I'm going to say what my ideal is
anyway. For now and always, I want someone I can do things with. I
want someone I can see myself growing old with, someone I can be with
when I am sixty. Such a statement requires the ability to think quite
a bit ahead into the future, because for all my talk above being
content alone, I am not convinced I'll feel the same way thirty years
from now. I want someone who will be what they are and not change
(personalities) just to make a relationship work. I want someone who
knows what they want.

Exclusivity is also important to me personally. I'm a passionate
person and I give a lot of my time and energy to the person I care
about. In the end, all of it comes to naught if there's nothing to
sustain and nourish it (i.e., if it's not returned). If someone isn't
willing to be exclusive to you, and you are to them, then it ends up
in a assymetric/objectifying situation. But besides some
health-related reasons, the primary reason I think exclusivity is
important is because of the energy you put in. For me also, it is how
I fall in love.

However, I'm also a firm believer of the adage that you can't
force a relationship, and so I think I want someone who, when they're
unhappy for whatever reasons, even if the reasons are unfair, will
work through it with me instead of bottling it up or pushing me away
when things get tough. I want someone who is not afraid to trust or
to get too close. I want someone who'll question me, who won't let me
get out of line, who will correct my mistakes regardless of how
stubborn I am, who will continually challenge me and will be able to
deal with being challenged. And most important, an ideal relationship
would be one where it is extremely casual and intense at the same
time, much the way it was with my friends in first grade when I was
five, possessing both passion and naivete.

Keep in mind that the moment I say I want these things, I'm
beginning my objectifying process. So in reality, I just believe in
going with the flow and seeing what happens---this has led to some
incongruous relationships, but, as they say, 'tis better to have loved
and lost than to have never loved at all. The sky is blue, the grass
is green, and either you're in a relationship that makes you happy, or
you're not. While it hurts each time you emotionally commit yourself
to someone and that commitment is lost, I think those feelings enable
you realise that you exist in this world. Also as I say
above, I think it's not likely that one can find a relationship by
looking for it.

This is corny (and extremely over-used), but the song
Somebody by Depeche Mode, although
demanding in tone, captures many of the things I've written above
lyrically.

I want somebody to share,
share the rest of my life,
share my innermost thoughts,
know my intimate details;
someone who'll stand by my side
and give me support.
And in return
she'll get my support.
She will listen to me
when I want to speak
about the world we live in
and life in general.
Though my views may be wrong,
they may even be perverted,
she'll hear me out
and won't easily be converted
to my way of thinking.
In fact, she'll often disagree.
But at the end of it all,
she will understand me.
I want somebody who cares
for me passionately
with every thought and with every breath.
Someone who'll help me see things
in a different light;
all the things I detest
I will almost like.
I don't want to be tied
to anyone's strings.
I'm carefully trying to steer clear of those things.
And when I'm asleep,
I want somebody
who will put her arms around me
and kiss me tenderly.
---Depeche Mode, Somebody

People have written and asked me about the current status of the
five-year relationship. I'm happy to say that the person I was
involved with and I are extremely great friends now. Five years is a
long time to know each other (it's now over eight) and I personally
feel it's great to be able to continue building the history, albeit
differently. And I've been in a couple of other cool relationships
since then, though I didn't necessarily feel that way when they
ended. (:

A more cynical viewpoint as to why relationships are screwed up...

Metaphorically speaking, before I get involved in any
relationship, I am sitting under this beautiful tree with tasty
fruits, enjoying the sun and whatever I am doing. I'm at peace with
the world. Then along comes someone who tantalises and attracts you
and so you run after them so they can sit under the tree with you.
But then as you start running, you get caught up in the chase and
forget about your beautiful tree. As they lead you into dark alleys
and unfamiliar and strange places, you no longer want to be there but
yet you're unsure about how to get back and since you have come this
far you keep going in the hope things will get better. And then things
come to a head where you lose them. Slowly you recover and find your
way back to the three, but then the cycle repeat. Was it worth it? (:
It's amazing to me how much the biology is so influential in why this
cycle repeats (and why we feel the desire to be with someone).

But there is hope...

Perhaps though the person you're supposed to be with is the one
you find when you are coming back to your tree (or a new tree) and you
realise you've been under the same tree all along but were always
chasing other people to be able to connect with each other.

The three components to a relationship

I believe these three components are necessary for a relationship
to work: physical compatibility (this not only means you need to be
physical attracted to each other, but desire a similar amount of
closeness together, from hugging and cuddling to sex), intellectual
compatibility (this is more elastic, but you definitely shouldn't have
world views that pit you against each other), and most importantly,
emotional compatibility (this is a personality match---two hot-headed
people will have a hard time getting along; a person who's not ready
for a relationship will have a hard time being with a person who is;
etc.). This is in my mind is what leads to asymmetry in
relationships. The three components are not mutually exclusive and
play off of each other.